Music is often responsible for some of the strongest human bonds, whether it be common tastes amongst peers or something that is passed from one generation to the next. In the French-language Canadian film Café de Flore, music is not only integral to the day-to-day lives of a love triangle in contemporary Montreal and a single mother raising a son with Down syndrome in 1960’s Paris, but it also helps tie two seemingly unrelated stories together without missing a beat.

The current-day story centers around 40-year-old Antoine (Canadian musician Kevin Parent in his first starring role), a musicphile who has parlayed his passion for Pink Floyd, Joy Division and house music into a successful club DJ career. Though they divorced two years earlier, Antoine still cares deeply for Carole (Hélène Florent), the ex-wife he fell in love with as a teenager. The fact that Antoine’s new love interest Rose (Évelyne Brochu) captivates him the same way Carole once did only makes the situation all the more complicated. While this love triangle plays out, Café de Flore flashes back to Jacqueline (French model/singer Vanessa Paradis) and her mentally-challenged son Laurent (Marin Gerrier), whose lives become equally complicated when Laurent develops his first crush on classmate Véro (Alice Dubois), who also has Down syndrome. Though the too stories couldn’t seem more different at first, director Jean-Marc Vallée weaves the two stories together through masterfully subtle visuals (many of which I only caught during my second viewing) and, of course, musical threads (namely a song from which the film’s title is derived).

As the parallels between the two stories become more and more apparent, the concept of eternal love becomes the central struggle of the film. And what a complicated struggle it can be, especially since at least two people in each triangle feel like they have found their soul mates, only to have what was written in the stars erased despite their best efforts. It’s a heart-wrenching thing to watch, even though it sometimes seems like the healthiest outcome given the circumstances. But no matter how happy and healthy Antonie seems to be, or how obsessively protective Jacqueline is of Laurent, or how many nightmares Carole has, everyone is trying to come to terms with something that seems impossible to resolve.

At one point, during a session with his therapist, Antoine says, “If it’s a soul mate it’s not supposed to end, right? It’s not supposed to happen twice.” These are some of the most astute words spoken in a film that is just as insightful with its use of symbolism, foreshadowing and a soundtrack dominated by the lush ambient work of Sigur Rós. But given the inevitably Nietzschian eternal cycle that plays out through these scenarios, it becomes obvious that these three souls are destined to continue repeating this tragic love story, prehaps in more than just the two instances we are given here.

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